Home Office

Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence

Dr Sarah Wollaston: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to ratify the Istanbul Convention.

Norman Baker: The Coalition Government signed the Istanbul Convention on 8 June 2012 signalling its strong commitment on tackling violence against women and girls. The UK already has some of the most robust protections in the world against violence towards women and we already comply with the majority of the articles to the Convention. One of the key components was the criminalisation of forced marriage which has now come into force following Royal Assent of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. However Government Departments and the Devolved Administrations continue to rigorously examine whether we are doing everything necessary to be able to ratify the Convention. In particular, this includes considering the extent to which we first need to take extra-territorial jurisdiction in respect of offences established in accordance with the Convention.

Ministry of Justice

Prison Service

Sadiq Khan: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many staff at (a) prison officer grades and (b) operational support grades were employed at HM Prison Service on 31 March in each of the last 10 years.

Andrew Selous: The number of prison officers and operational support grade staff that were employed by National Offender Management Services (NOMS) as at 31 March, 2004 – 2009 can be found in the table below Table: Number of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) Prison Officer Grades and Operational Support Grades in NOMS as at 31 March, 2004 - 2009 Grade200420052006200720082009Operational Support Grades751072807400755080207920Prison Officer188801895019210193601967020210Senior Officer375038403870387039804090Principal Officer132013001260128013001320Grand Total314603137031730320703296033540 Figures are rounded to the nearest 10 in line with the department’s policy for presenting staffing data. Totals are formed from unrounded parts prior to rounding. For this reason, totals may not equal the sum of their rounded parts. The number of prison officers and operational support grade staff that have been employed by National Offender Management Services (NOMS) as at 31 March, 2010 – 2014 can be found in table 3 of the Quarterly NOMS Workforce Statistics Bulletin, which can be found at the following website:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-offender-management-service-workforce-statistics-march-2014 The number of prison officers and operational support grade staff that were employed in contracted establishments for the last 10 years is not available via NOMS central databases. Individual contractors are responsible for gathering, monitoring and analysing their own data regarding their staff. However a request has been made to private contractors for the latest data and I will write to you again when I receive this information. Benchmarking is the best means of delivering value for money for the public purse (on track to deliver £84 million by the end of 2013/2014, savings of £175 million by 2015/2016). It optimises the skills of staff by introducing new ways of working and puts all prison officers in prisoner-facing roles. It has been agreed with the Unions, and the NAO has commented that the wider strategy is the most coherent and comprehensive for many years. It delivers efficiencies whilst ensuring that public sector prisons can operate safely, decently and securely.

Young Offender Institutions: Bullying

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of incidents of bullying in youth custody institutions in each year since May 2010.

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what estimate he has made of the number of victims of bullying in youth custody institutions who suffer from mental health issues.

Dan Jarvis: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps he has taken to prevent bullying in the youth custody environment.

Andrew Selous: Bullying is taken very seriously across the youth estate. All youth custody establishments must have an anti-bullying policy and safeguarding arrangements in place which address both the causes and effects of bullying. The safety of young people and approaches for managing challenging behaviour in custody are monitored by the Youth Justice Board and independent inspectorates. Data on the number of incidents of bullying in youth custody institutions are collected by individual establishments in order to assist them in managing bullying but information is not held centrally. Whilst healthcare providers will have data about mental health issues, this information is not held centrally and is not routinely collected alongside bullying information.

Deputy Prime Minister

Electoral Register

Stephen Twigg: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, if he will place a report in the Library every week of what proportion of the Spring 2014 electorate have been successfully datamatched for the transition to the Individual Electoral Register using (a) the DWP CIS database and (b) additional datamatching employed by local authorities in each local authority.

Mr Sam Gyimah: The results of the nationwide test of datamatching between government records and electoral registers is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evaluation-confirming-electors-through-data-matchingAn evaluation report on the datamatching taking place this summer is due to be published in late autumn.

Electoral Register

Stephen Twigg: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister, if he will place a report in the Library every week of the number of voter registration requests made via the new online registration service in each local authority.

Mr Sam Gyimah: Data concerning the volumes of online and paper applications received, which can be interrogated by date, is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/performance/register-to-vote